This drawing is part of a series I’ve been working on, all very different in subject matter. Others are named: The Medusa’s Dance, In Awe of the Singer, The Other Side of the Looking Glass and Theatre in the Clouds.
The complete process of this drawing took a considerable amount of time. It is done with charcoal on a 22 inch x 30 inch sheet of Arches Cold Press watercolor paper. Cold Press watercolor sheets have a slight texture. Hot Press is very smooth and then there is Rough which has much more texture than the Cold Press.
I would say that the Centaur took the longest time to complete, probably six months. The Centaur gave me goose bumps many times while working on it. I hid hid it in a closet for a while because it was disturbing to me as I worked on it. Six months later, I was able to finish it.
I am going to be secretive here and not say exactly how this drawing was done or how the charcoal was applied because I have seen very few of these types of work. I will just say that I let my imagination run away and started seeing things in the charcoal. Once I start seeing an image, I begin drawing lightly around it or filling in negative space with a charcoal pencil. I don’t define the image completely at first. I have to see what else I imagine in the scene. Each time I go back into the drawing, I get a bit darker. I also will lift out charcoal that is too dark. By that I don’t mean erase. There is a special eraser called a Kneaded eraser that you can squeeze or roll, kind of like ‘Silly Putty’ back about 40 yrs ago. All you need to do is press into the charcoal and lift off.
Below is me standing next to The Other Side of the Looking Glass which was in an exhibition at Grady Gammage, Arizona State University, during the showing of The Phantom of the Opera. I was younger then.
thesnakeandiandthebutterfly 
I prefer M$ Office. But I haven't used it for a while as it's on my older computer so only there as a stand-by.I just wanted to get the word out that Writer from Open Office is free and very good.http://my.opera.com/Weatherlawyer/blog/2009/01/12/open-office-3Oddly enough Writer is better for posting blogs to the soon to be defunct MSN.communities. Word always spills broken code all over it.
Opera doesn't help with its slow to update. It's especially annoying when you put a picture in an album then try to load it to a blog thread. (It's bad enough trying to put one in a comment.)But it is a good idea to write stuff on a word processor in the first place as you get three chances to correct it. And it keeps a copy for futer use when you want to redirect a thought in years to come or just move to another site or comment there.You can get a free word procesor from OpenOffice.org. It is slow and if you copy huge tracts of the spread sheet (Calc) (the worst offender) it will jam the computer.But it well worth the price.
My computer came with MS Office Professional which is quite good and really has more things on it than I use. It was very helpful to have when I was going to school and had to create slide show presentations and publication documents. The templates were great. It's been a couple of years since I've used them so not sure if I'd remember how.
I wonder how many people that involves with MSN communities?
Thy offered them free space on another system. I think having communities on your books, whilst not a profit maker in itself is a useful loss leader to some IT related money spinners.Oper wants to get more Opera users because they get money from search engine manufacturers. That is why they want as much cross party service as possible and so many foreign language users.I dare say MSN have been offered something for their "book".
Back at you! Nothing like a geeziod moment to ruin a good day. It just keeps snowing and snowing here. The temp is down near zero and is expected to stay there thru Saturday. Help!:no: